In Reply to: Don't know much about collegiate volleyball, but question... posted by TheNewBruinPrototype on April 14, 2010 at 13:08:10
My understanding of post-season play is that the MPSF league championship involves their top eight teams, and according to the MPSF website last week, UCLA needed "three wins in their last four" for a post-season bid. So that's their math, not mine. That was before the Long Beach State game, which the Bruins won.
While UCLA and a few other teams are playing for post-season bids, teams that are mathematically assured of a bid -- including Stanford, BYU, Cal State Northridge, Pepperdine, and Hawaii -- are playing for home advantage. If UCLA gets in, they'll have to play on the road, which will make it harder to advance.
You can't compare the NCAA volleyball championships to the basketball championships, because there are so few volleyball leagues and teams. Three leagues each send their champion to the NCAA final four, and a bid is extended to the remaining top team that didn't win its league. So UCLA and all the other top 10 ranked teams, much less the top 25, are going to have to earn their way to the NCAA championships by either winning their league or getting that ONE remaining bid.